August 14, 2011

It Hurts, But He’s Not Forgotten

I had an encouraging vision tonight while writing a poem for a friend who is enduring extremely challenging times.

I saw the tears my friend was crying as she prayed, and Father God looking lovingly and gently into her face. And though she could not see Him clearly through all the tears, He was taking each tear as it came down, onto His fingertip. He inspected each tear closely and as He looked into each beaded teardrop, He saw His own reflection in that tear. He knew that He would be reflected in each tear, yet He didn’t neglect to inspect each and every one. After inspecting a tear, he let the tear roll off the side of His fingertip and into the top of a large, dark blue teardrop-shaped bottle that He carried with Him at all times to collect the tears of the saints.

Then I saw the tears of Jesus as He prayed for those He was to save. And in His tears, our faces were reflected so that if we inspected His tears, we would see ourselves, and remember from whom these tears came. His tears would glorify God, His Father, whom He was making known to us.

Then I saw Jesus lifted up on the Cross and His blood was dripping down from his side where the whips had broken open His flesh. The blood dripped down his chest, his side, spiraling down his leg and from his heel it flowed down the trunk of the tree on which he hung. I clung to that old rugged cross, and I looked and saw the drops slide down further still until they soaked into the dust around my feet. “We are made of dust,” I thought, as I realized how far those drops of blood had traveled for me – from Heaven’s highest place…to be soaked up by the dust, poured out upon a sinful mortal people to save them from their sins and God’s holy wrath. How great was His humiliation for us!

Jesus’ tears and blood plead forgiveness for us so that we can fully enter the Father’s presence without hesitation. He forgave us so that we could forgive and live for His purposes, to make more of Him and less of ourselves.

I had this sense that God takes prayers and tears seriously. He cherishes them. He holds them for the proper time. He doesn’t forget them or push them away and pretend they aren’t there; He doesn’t cast them as far as the east is from the west or add them to the ocean as just another droplet of water; He knows their depth, each tear’s cry. And He listens to the tears of His saints just as He listened to the tears of His Son and the cry of His Son’s blood spilled for us.

At the appointed time, I saw Father take His bottle into the throneroom of Heaven and pour it out so that it became a river. The bottle kept pouring out more tears than it seemed it was possible it could contain. It made a crystal clear river of life in the New Jerusalem and splished and splashed joyously throughout all of heaven. The sounds of its splashing and gushing were like choirs of heavenly music which sung praises to God.

I saw the Samaritan woman by the well whom Jesus had asked to draw water for Him. When she questioned Him, He told her that he could give her living water. I saw the tears of Jesus again and knew that God notices every tear His Son or His children have ever cried, and that all will glorify God in the end, though now it’s still a mystery. We know that He sees His reflection in our tears.

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I am not posting the full poem, but what is relevant to the above is here:It Hurts, But He’s Not Forgotten
….
God sees and knows and feels each blow you take.

His Son’s tears plead a testimony of salvation for us
As His blood poured down from his side,
Down his leg, Down the wood of that old rugged cross;
The friend to which I cling,
As I confess that His blood made its way to sink
Into the dust around my feet
To redeem people like you and me who are just such,
And make us clean.

These tears and this blood pleads forgiveness for you and me,
That we may be forgiven and by forgiving others be set free
To love Him more, to become lesser still,
To serve Him fully and yield our hearts to His will.

So your prayers and tears are in Father’s big bottle,
Not forgotten, not pushed aside, not thrown away, not belittled.
He dropped each one in there Himself after looking intently to see
His own reflection in the bead.

Jesus’ tears reflected us and our tears reflect Him now.

Perhaps the tears of the saints cause the crystal river of life to flow
Through the courts of the heavenlies with newfound boyancy and vigor,
Understanding their purpose.

Perhaps the waters that make us thirst not are the forever-powerful
Prayers of our savior’s tearful intercession on our behalf,
For the Father’s glory.

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Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Rev 22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

John 4:7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”